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Four months might seem a long advance time to be running a trailer for a chess tournament but when the line-up is as special as the one for the Chess.com Isle of Man International (23 September - 1 October 2017), chess fans are going to want to know about it. You may be used to the Isle of Man line-up being very strong, but this year’s event could be very special indeed.

As at 09:30 BST on 12 May, we have 158 confirmed entries for the Masters from 33 countries, including 64 Grandmasters. After taking into account 16 reserved places where entry is still to be confirmed, we have reached the venue’s 174 player capacity.

The online entry facility for the Masters will remain open for the time being but any entries received from now on will be put on a reserve list on a first-come-first-served basis. Please note that no further entries will be accepted into the Masters for players rated below 2000, although they can, of course, enter the Major.

For those titled players still enquiring about conditions, I reiterate that the conditions budget was fully committed months ago and so there is no point in asking, unless your initials are MC!

Entries are now open for the 2017 edition of the Chess.com Isle of Man International Chess Tournament, to be held in Douglas from 23 September to 1 October, made possible by substantial sponsorship from the Scheinberg family...

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John Saunders reports: the 2018 Chess.com Isle of Man International was won by Radoslaw Wojtaszek of Poland after a play-off match with Arkadij Naiditsch of Azerbaijan. The two players led going into the last round and drew their ninth round game to finish on 7/9 while none of the four players on 6/8 managed to win in order to tie with them. They each take home a cheque for £37,500 with Wojtaszek also receiving a further £500 for winning the blitz play-off. The initial two-game blitz was tied on 1-1 but Wojtaszek chose White in the Armageddon game and duly won. Seven players finished on 6½: Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Grischuk (both Russia), Hikaru Nakamura, Jeffery Xiong (both USA), Wang Hao (China), Gawain Jones (England) and Baskaran Adhiban (India).

John Saunders reports: another pulsating day’s chess saw four 2700+ rated players bite the dust, all bar one beaten by players less highly rated than themselves, and in one case more than 200 points adrift. Two leaders emerge from the smoke of battle, Arkadij Naiditsch (Azerbaijan) and Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Poland), who now both have 6½/8, while four more players are half a point behind them and are still in with a chance of a share in the top prize – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Wang Hao (China), Gawain Jones (England) and Jeffery Xiong (USA).

John Saunders reports: another remarkable round at the Villa Marina saw the number of leaders increase by one – the same names as per the round six leader board, plus England’s perennial numero uno, Mickey Adams. There was some fantastic chess played, which it gives me great pleasure to report upon. Before we move on, let’s just record the seven leaders’ names for the record: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Poland), Wang Hao (China), Arkadij Naiditsch (Azerbaijan), Mickey Adams (England) and Jeffery Xiong (USA) all have 5½ out of 7.